To Save a Rare South African Ecosystem, Conservationists Bought the Land

By Kristine Sabillo

Three conservation trusts have together purchased an area of a severely threatened vegetation type found in the Overberg region of South Africa’s Western Cape province. Known as the renosterveld, this unique habitat characterized by shrubs and grasses is also a breeding ground for endangered black harriers, the three groups announced in a joint press release.

The Overberg Renosterveld Trust (ORT) partnered with the U.K.-based World Land Trust (WLT) and the Mapula Trust to buy the 270-hectare (667-acre) property called Goereesoe. The site is part of the Eastern Rûens Shale Renosterveld, an ecosystem considered to be critically endangered. The renosterveld used to cover a large part of the Overberg region, but now only 5% remains, due to land conversion for agriculture, ORT said.

“This is a significant win for renosterveld and the Black Harrier,” Odette Curtis-Scott, CEO of the Overberg Renosterveld Trust, said in the release. “By securing this land, we are protecting critical habitat and species whose futures are teetering on a knife edge.”

The black harrier (Circus maurus), found mostly in South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini, has fewer than 500 breeding pairs left in the wild. Goereesoe, along with the neighboring Haarwegskloof Renosterveld Reserve and another property called Plaatjieskraal — all managed by the ORT and known collectively as the Haarwegskloof Cluster — together support around 30 pairs of breeding black harriers, or 6% of the global population, ORT said.

ORT added that securing Goereesoe will help researchers track movements of black harriers, which have been impacted by wind turbines, as previously reported by Mongabay.

Curtis-Scott said the Haarwegskloof Cluster, the largest connected stretch of renosterveld left on Earth, has now grown to more than 1,300 hectares (3,200 acres), after adding Plaatjieskraal and Goereesoe. ORT said it hopes both properties will receive nature reserve status soon, and is working with neighboring farms to grow a conservation corridor.

“It means that wildlife, especially our precious pollinators and invertebrates, can move freely and safely across this natural remnant patches in this highly transformed landscape,” Curtis-Scott said.

The renosterveld ecosystem features unique vegetation, including shrubs like the renosterbos (Elytropappus rhinocerotis) and very rare flowering bulbs like Hesperantha kiaratayloriae and Lachenalia barberae, that grow over fertile, clay- and shale-based soils and outcrops of white quartz. Renosterveld, Afrikaans for “rhinoceros field,” was possibly named for the gray renosterbos bushes resembling rhino hide, or refers to black rhinos that historically roamed the area before being killed off by European settlers.

“Protecting this site means safeguarding one of the most threatened ecosystems on Earth, and the species that depend on it,” said Catherine Barnard, CEO of World Land Trust.

The acquisition of Goereesoe was made possible through WLT’s Buy An Acre program, which allows people to directly help purchase and protect threatened habitats.

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Previously Published on news.mongabay with Creative Commons Attribution

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